Cosmos
From the Cosmos newsroom.
Descendants of Vikings from Iceland and the Faroe Islands have genetic signatures that hint at their forebears, according to a new analysis.
The study, published in Frontiers in Genetics, found that different groups of Vikings had colonised the two places, which are about 300km apart.
“Scientists have long assumed that the Faroe Islands and Iceland were both settled by similar Norse people. Yet our novel analysis has shown that these islands were founded by men from different gene pools within Scandinavia,” says lead author Dr Christopher Tillquist, a researcher at the University of Louisville, USA.
The Faroe Islands were settled by Vikings in the 9th and 10th centuries, but there’s evidence there were people there before them – possibly Celts.
“Here we provide strong evidence that the Faroe Islands were colonized by a diverse group of male settlers from multiple Scandinavian populations,” says Tillquist.
The researchers looked at DNA on the Y chromosomes of 139 men from Borðoy, Streymoy, and Suðuroy in the Faroe Islands. They compared this to DNA from 412 men from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Ireland.
The researchers used a new analysis technique they’ve dubbed ‘Mutational Distance from Modal Haplotype’ to look at tiny changes in DNA.
This showed differences in the genomes of Faroese and Icelandic people, suggesting different groups of Vikings colonised them. It also showed a “founder effect” among the Faroese people: a lack of genetic diversity that suggests a small group colonised the islands initially.
“One group, diverse in their Scandinavian origins, established themselves in the Faroe Islands, while another and more genetically divergent band of Vikings colonised Iceland. They have separate genetic signatures that persist to this day,” says Tillquist.
“There doesn’t seem to have been any interbreeding afterwards between these two populations, despite their geographic proximity. Our results demonstrate that Viking expansion into the North Atlantic was more complex than previously thought.
“Each longship that set sail for these distant islands carried not just Vikings, but distinct genetic legacies. We can now trace these separate journeys of conquest and settlement, revealing a more nuanced story of Viking exploration than told by the history books.”
